October 10, 2009

Lost in Translation

Austrians do not get knock-knock jokes.

Exhibit A: told C. various gems from my childhood. He did not laugh.

Exhibit B:

I said, now you try.
Christian said:"Knock knock!"
"Who's there?"
"Christian"
"Christian who?"
"Christian Witternigg"
Much giggling ensued.

Not much to report from this week. I don't have more pictures from the party yet. I spent a lot of the week on the internet looking at apts. and then visiting said apartments. I saw a couple that I like, but we have been looking for so long that Christian thinks our standards should be correspondingly high.

In being-allowed-to-stay-in-the-country-news, C. called the interior ministry and spoke to a very helpful man there, so I that I will hopefully be able to make some concrete progress on Monday. Not having anything to do here is starting to get to me, especially as my friends, who were previously more than happy to have coffee with me at any hour of the day, have now gone back to school or begun studying for exams.

We are in Eugendorf again this weekend, holing up away from the city. I am missing my family a bit right now, as I know that most of the Peacocks are in Waterloo celebrating my Grandma Peacock's 90th birthday and doing other entertaining family reunion things that I hate to miss.

Finally, that red velvet cake... was sort of a miss. Did you know that Europeans do not use measuring cups? Let's just say I need more practice with this whole "scale" thing. Also, Euro cream cheese ≠ N.A. cream cheese and that = cream cheese icing that ≠ good. After sneaking finger-dips into it for a week, I finally threw it (and the cake) out yesterday. Baking was honestly so ridiculous that next time I will try to photo-document it. I have much respect for generations of Hausfrauen that have made such lovely pastries either by free-pouring or weighing their ingredients. Anyway, sad face at inedible cake. Sighs of contentment at having C's grandma's raspberry/whipped cream roulade cake to supplement it. Oh, and, did I mention I almost had a breakdown in the supermarket - after being there for over 90 minutes - because everything has a different name here.....

Anyway, lots of nice things have different names too. For example, the delicious double Americanos that they make are called "ein Verlängerter", and the 1 Euro gelato you can get everywhere is called "Eis". Just to end on a positive note. Bussis.

PS. Most of these are really not that funny.

PPS. Except for this one.

October 5, 2009

Just to give you an idea...